Cooperative Learning Activity and Paper - Essay Example

Cooperative Learning Activity Introduction Differences between cooperative learning and group work in teams Cooperative learning in teams entails cooperation by students through the learning process. The students capitalize on learning from each other through exchanging, evaluating and monitoring of each individual’s ideas. In such an event, the role that is normally played by a teacher totally changes to facilitation other than the providing information to the students. Cooperative learning that takes place in teams enables students to think creatively, as most of the tasks carried out are intellectual and open ended.

Although group work may be closely linked to cooperative learning, it employs more of quantity and quality but with limited interdependence that is positive. Some students may be very dormant while others may be fully involved, hence lack of accountability and equal participation which, are the basics of cooperative learning. Unlike cooperative learning whereby individual student performance is monitored publicly, in group work, the overall outcomes from the group is what matters most even if one of the students did not get the concept of the learning activity, hence cooperative learning is more efficient than group work (McCafferty et al, 2006).

Examples of Activities that can be done in cooperative learning groups Activities that can be done in cooperative learning groups includes; teacher identifying a specific topic with different subtopics. Under the subtopics, each student is given a task to research on and finally presents it in their cooperative learning groups as the other students listens to the posed ideas and clarifies on any issue that is not clear. Through this, all the individuals gain from the learning activity. Another cooperative learning activity is modelling of a structure like maybe an urban planning landscape, whereby each student is given a different component of the landscape to incorporate into the whole landscape model.

After each student has carried out their task, all the students are responsible and accountable of the final model of the urban landscape. In addition, a student may be given an area of expertise to teach the whole class. Through this, the student teaching gains as much as the learners through what he or she has taught (McCafferty et al, 2006).Cooperative learning activity A good example, in an elementary class, grade one, where shapes are the best method of introducing geometry in mathematics, cooperative learning can be incorporated to the students learning.

In a class that is meant to go for an hour, students can be divided into four groups with five individuals each. Each group is to be assigned a shape like circle, triangle, square and rectangle. A house model that has all the shapes to be identified is given to each group. The students are to identify the number of times that the shape assigned to them appears in the house after thirty minutes. Each group is given six minutes to identify and give the number of times their assigned shape appears after the thirty minutes.

Through this, the students will be able to learn from each other and they will have all participated equally in the activity. This method of learning geometrical shapes is a very practical way of cooperative learning. This is because; all the students involved shall have built their prior knowledge from the different groups. They will discover that it is not only the shapes that they were dealing with that are in geometry but others also exist and the idea that geometry is practical in nature.

This activity is appropriate for the elementary class of grade one since they are just in the process of discovering new shapes that are involved in geometrical class. This is a good way of allowing the students to have a good perception of mathematics as a subject which, in most cases is considered to be difficult by many students. Through this, they are able to learn from each other and appreciate each others ideas.Conclusion It is therefore, evident that cooperative learning in a team is more effective than a plain group work activity.

This is attributed to the fact that, students are able to equally participate and be monitored as much they may be working in group. Hence each student gains personal skills and can always carry out a task that is given to them to carry out individually.ReferenceMcCafferty, S. G., Jacobs, G. M., & DaSilva, I. A. C. (2006). Cooperative learning and second language teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press.